Contemporary computer systems employ various user interface (UI) mechanisms to facilitate data entry. One commonly utilised UI mechanism is the wizard. Wizards are typically employed when a data entry task lends itself to being broken down into a series of steps in order to improve the comprehensibility of the data entry task (e.g. when data to be entered by a user is deemed too confusing for entry by way of a single screen).
A wizard is a series of dialog boxes or “pages” that is presented in a particular sequence. Each page of the wizard corresponds to a step in the overall data entry task. The pages are often graphical but are not necessarily so. Typically, each page contains data entry fields of various types (e.g. radio buttons, text entry fields, checkboxes, etc.) and textual instructions describing the actions that should be taken by the user to enter data on the current page. A set of navigational controls is displayed in conjunction with each page to permit the user to traverse the wizard page-by-page. These navigational controls typically comprise four buttons: a “next” button for advancing to the next page of the wizard, a “back” button for going back to a previous page (i.e. backtracking), a “cancel” button for aborting the wizard and a “finish” button for completing the wizard.
In standard operation, upon the occurrence of a triggering event the wizard will be invoked and the first page of the wizard will be displayed. The user interacts with the wizard, by way of a mouse and keyboard for example, to enter any data requested on the first page and, when finished, selects the “next” button to advance to the second page. This process is repeated until all of the wizard's pages have been traversed. If necessary, the user may select the “back” button to review previously entered data or to correct a previous entry. While the wizard's pages are being traversed, the wizard essentially acts a buffer, containing any data entered by the user until the wizard is completed.
When all of the wizard's pages have been traversed and all of the required data entered, the “finish” button will become active. Upon its selection by the user, the wizard is completed, i.e., the UI is exited and the entered data is processed according to the wizard's underlying purpose. The processing associated with wizard completion usually results in the generation of a system product (i.e. a set of one or more system components, such as generated electronic files or amendments to existing files for example, that are created pursuant to the wizard's purpose, but are not merely by-products of the wizard mechanism).
Because the above-described wizard UI only generates the system product upon wizard completion, the correlation between the data entered on any given wizard page and the component(s) of the resultant system product may be unclear to a user. This may be especially true in cases when the number of wizard pages is large or when the system product has many components. Disadvantageously, this uncertainty may negatively impact the user's ability to comprehend the wizard UI and the associated application software.
What is therefore needed is a wizard UI that is capable of providing the user with greater visibility into system product generation during wizard traversal. What is also needed is a system for displaying such a wizard UI. What is additionally needed is a method of developing software to implement such a wizard UI.